May A. Rihani is presently the Director of the George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace at the University of Maryland.

Before joining the University of Maryland, May served as Senior Vice President at FHI360, the Academy for Educational Development (AED), and Creative Associates International. Her responsibilities included ensuring the planning and implementation of educational reform projects as well as integrating gender perspectives in these programs. She designed, planned, and managed numerous educational reform projects as well as cross-cutting gender programs and girls' education projects in Afghanistan, Benin, Congo (DRC), Egypt, El Salvador, Ghana, Guinea, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, and Yemen. As a result of her international work, May was elected as the Co-Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Intitiave, (UNGEI,) from 2008 to 2010.

Ms. Rihani has worked with the ministries of education and civil society in many African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries to advance basic education and girls’ education. One of her publications is Learning for the 21st Century: Girls’ Education in the Middle East and North Africa. Her most recent technical publication is: Keeping the Promise: Five Benefits of Girls’ Secondary Education.

In addition, May Rihani is an author in English and Arabic. She published eight books, five in English and three in Arabic. Her latest is a memoir, published in 2014, entitled Cultures Without Borders: From Beirut to Washington, D.C.